But the real question is how did it get so big in the first place? Before it reached that critical mass, how did it grow so quickly? I think the answer is that it is the only one that allows nearly complete freedom for its users. Meaning that the same reason everyone hates myspace (the inconsistency and terribly low quality of the pages) is the same reason the users love it. The kids on myspace want to customize their pages, they don't want someone enforcing that the pages look good to some corporate ideal. They want to break all the rules of good taste. And myspace let them. And so they fled the more controlled environments like Friendster and then it crossed some tipping point and everyone went there. So I can gag at the quality all I want, but it is key to their success. At least that's how I see it.
Is it just me who finds this direction questionable? I write software for a pure online company, so I think online software services are wonderful for a whole bunch of stuff. But there's a lot of things I don't want to do online. Actually, I find the current division pretty good... the more communication oriented something is the more online it is. I think this falls out naturally from what consumers want and what makes sense technically. Do consumers really want an online spreadsheet yet, for example? Someone has to push the envelope I guess. I'm curious to see the reaction to this move.
I think this is a great idea... assuming that they make it difficult to trigger by accident or hacking (am I assuming too much?). More than my cell phone, I wish they'd do this with iPods. Even without wireless they could make it only happen on sync. If they did that, I wonder how long it would take for thievery to become less desirable. It would have to be pretty consistant to work.
I want to know where I can move. Seriously. I love what America is supposed to stand for, but it doesn't stand for that any more. This wiretapping thing is a small thing in the big picture, but eventually I really think I'd rather move on and try my luck somewhere else. I've travelled a bit and France and Scotland both seemed kinda nice at a glance. I'm sure they have their problems.
Basically I'm wondering if anyone really likes their country. What are some good options for someone who wants to move on? Taking into account my obvious bias for technology and liberty?
Here in America, where we talk a lot about businesses and competition and capitalism, we're actually not much different from the Soviets
Here here. I think one of the things that is not understood well enough is that without regulation to avoid this kind of thing, the inevitable natural state of a totally unregulated market or society is monopolies and despotism. It takes active involvement to maintain competition and capitalism. But somehow, despite the fact that we've already been through this in many nations at many times, this knowledge is lost over and over.
I haven't listened to the radio in years. Good job Clear Channel.
I've always believed that despite any increase in exposure brought by file sharing, it was going to be a problem for CD sales eventually. The record company exaggerated the harm, but the proponents exaggerated the benefits. But in the end it doesn't matter. Because it's not important to compare CD sales to file sharing; a decade earlier CD sales killed tape sales too and nobody really cared. The real problem is that the music biz didn't get into the new medium fast enough. They were too chicken to just put mp3's up for sale. So people did it black market like. General note: if something is going to happen anyway, you might as well embrace it. You don't get much for standing around and whining.
Now iTunes has demonstrated that people are more than willing to pay for a music download service even when music is available free. Because the key word is service. And the price is reasonable to most people. That's all any business has to do. The only major things iTunes lacks are complete selection (though it's quite good) and non-DRM (which will never happen). Both of these are the last vestiges of the recording industry resisting change. I think they'd actually make more money if they gave up on stopping people from doing things and focused on making their customers giddy happy.
Apple should be happy that its golden goose is getting so much free publicity
First off, Apple is too legally aggressive in my opinion, so this is not a defense of the company in general. However, my non-lawyer understanding here is that they may be at risk of trademark dillusion if they don't go after this kind of thing. It isn't clear cut, and different judges will rule differently, so they're erring on the side of caution. This may just be a legally prudent action to keep their trademark.
Of course, if someone with more legal experience can explain how they're not at all at risk, then sure, maybe they're just being assholes.
I've hooked my iPod up with four different devices over the past couple years with aftermarket devices; the quality varies greatly. I skipped the FM and tape units as the sound quality isn't satisfactory. So these were all direct-in solutions, using the dock connector and the CD-changer hookup that most cars have today. The one that I most recently installed is called the DICE, and I'm really happy with it. Previous tries had problems with the iPod not always shutting down or starting up automatically when the car was turned on and off, and some of them would introduce odd noises now and again. But the DICE hasn't exhibited any of these problems, and also has some really cool extras like text display of the artist/song if your stereo does CD text, and steering wheel control while still allowing direct control with the iPod.
A good point; I hadn't realized that was the case here, but you're right. In fact, that is my position: if someone was profitting from my work then I'd be upset, but I don't mind if people share it freely.
I wonder if this is about me. I've been the Director of Development for the past six years at Zappos.com, but my signature for most of that time has read "Director of Plumbing":)
I don't think it is about me, but maybe I'm just too much of a PHB to even know! Hey, Frustrated Dilbert, if I'm the guy you're talking about just sit down with me sometime and fill me in!
You are absolutely right about the energy source / energy storage confusion. I've had a really hard time explaining that to even smart people. However, hydrogen doesn't need to be an energy source to be useful; a good energy storage & transportation medium would be a very useful thing over time. What I mean is that there is an advantage to abstracting our fuel sources; it allows us to switch out the underlying enegy gathering mechanism from the infrastructure. If we're on hydrogen already when fossil fuels run out, we can switch to another method of generation without having to retool the whole world.
I agree on your last point too, though. Biodiesel may very well be a better storage medium. Aside from the higher energy density it is far easier and safer to store and handle. I think one of it's biggest problems is that it's not sexy sounding enough for most people. They associate hydrogen with the hydrogen bomb (despite the reaction being unrelated of course) and they associate biodiesel with greenpeace and smokey oily truckers.
Perhaps if someone made a biodiesel fuel cell of sorts to power laptops...:) We'll see what happens, I suppose:)
Keep in mind that a large group, like a student committee or slashdot, the group can be vocal oppontents and vocal proponents of intellectual property in different cases without any individual actually contradicting themselves. But taking that into account, I'll be there are still a huge number of copyright violators who would be outraged if their own copyright was violated. I find that kind of double standard pretty lame and disappointingly common. And it's one of the many reasons that we haven't been able to get reasonable copyright limits in place... because so many people want infinite protection for their own ideas even though it's obvious that society functions better with a less restricted idea flow.
At the moment I don't have anything popular enough to make a point with, but the creative projects I have worked on I've made freely available. I'd like to think that if I ever had a big hit song or movie that I'd release it into the public domain after a few years, maybe 14 like the founders allowed. Maybe sooner if I could do so financially.
The site I have data for is large (around 10mm pageviews per day) and is general in appeal (not an Apple or tech related site). Our Mac percentage has been increasing slowly but steadily. For September so far it is at 7.63%. I predict that they're doing fine.
Most interesting to me is that despite most of the passwords being decent it makes not a lick of difference in these people being phished. Once again, being sharp and understanding of the big picture is more important than following any isolated rule about security. Good luck getting that out to the masses, though:)
I predict that over time the Wikipedia will have moved forward quickly enough to make the Citizendium a less useful source. Remember, we've already had plenty of expert edited encyclopedias and references around. The fact that Wikipedia is useful (regardless of any criticisms) shows that it has some advantage over the other references that existed beforehand. Never underestimate the power of large numbers. I am curious to see if Citizendium does offer a useful middle ground between traditional encyclopedias and the wiki.
That sure does seem high. I live in Las Vegas and my 2100 sqft house comes in at $170/month in the summer and as low as $30 in the winter. Are your windows and doors sealed properly? Maybe there's some missing stripping? Not sure if it would help in your case, but solar screens can help. I don't even have them, though. But a lot of people around here do.
Well I can't prove it, but I know that I'm lousy at most puzzles. But I'm quite good at real-world problem solving. I've been working at my current employer for six years, as the first programmer and now as head of the development team. We've been rated in the top 5 fastest and most reliable retail sites for a long time now, as we doubled business year over year, so I think we (that includes me) are pretty good at solving real world problems. Some of the team likes puzzles, and some do not.
I think the puzzle solving thing appeals to a certain type of mind, sure. And perhaps a higher than average number of those people make decent programmers. But I've known puzzle solvers who couldn't focus on a practical solution to save their life. I've also known puzzle avoiders like myself, who are excellent at such things -- and quite humble, I assure you;) I worked at Microsoft for a while, and they're all about the puzzle-type interview questions. I did not feel that this got them the best people.
Anyways, I think it may be occasionally useful, but a catch-all litmus test like this is bound to fall short. Humans are complicated things. The skills required to make a good developer are varied and hard to pin down. And a good team will want variety as well. No simple test is going to substitute for understanding the problem space, understanding the existing team dynamic, getting a good sense of the applicant, and using good judgment.
I agree with you. However it doesn't actually need to be a solid system to seemingly have the desired effect. iTunes 6 broke Hymn quite a while ago and until last week there was no way to decrypt. There still isn't on the Mac. They can keep changing things up and make it a pain. And even though there's still CD's out there and people can download from P2P, they file lawsuits to put a damper on that. So I think they believe their strategy is stopping 80% or more of the problem.
However, I think the real reason legal music downloads is working is because iTunes is a better experience. That's it. I think they're wasting their own time and money with DRM and lawsuits and whatever. All they've ever had to do was provide a better experience and people will pay. People with money will, anyways. They've seen this but they won't believe it. And if they wanted to take it further down the "better experience" path, they'd drop DRM and lawsuits. But whatever; they won't.
I own the VHS copies of the original trilogy. I don't want the special editions. So I downloaded the TR47 DVD versions from BitTorrent. They're from the Laserdisc, and they look pretty good. They're a little mushy looking, but good enough for me to feel satisfied, anyways. There's also some great DVD cover art to go with them if you poke around. I recommend any Star Wars fan check those out.
If Lucas released a cleaned & remastered versions of the originals, where cleanup included things like eliminating those travelling trash mattes in some of the space battles, but no more, I'd be happy to buy it. Until then, I've got something that I think is good enough.
Slashdot Mirror
Live in Nevada? Question 7 on the November 7th ballot decriminilzes marijuana, regulating it somewhat like alcohol. It's a good first step.
Cheers.
I absolutely, positively do NOT want government requirements for labeling
Why not? If we're about letting the market sort this stuff out, don't we need to at least make sure people are able to make informed decisions?
Cheers.
But the real question is how did it get so big in the first place? Before it reached that critical mass, how did it grow so quickly? I think the answer is that it is the only one that allows nearly complete freedom for its users. Meaning that the same reason everyone hates myspace (the inconsistency and terribly low quality of the pages) is the same reason the users love it. The kids on myspace want to customize their pages, they don't want someone enforcing that the pages look good to some corporate ideal. They want to break all the rules of good taste. And myspace let them. And so they fled the more controlled environments like Friendster and then it crossed some tipping point and everyone went there. So I can gag at the quality all I want, but it is key to their success. At least that's how I see it.
Cheers.
I figure nearly every nation that wants one will have access to nukes in the next 50 years. I wonder if we're ready for that.
Cheers.
Is it just me who finds this direction questionable? I write software for a pure online company, so I think online software services are wonderful for a whole bunch of stuff. But there's a lot of things I don't want to do online. Actually, I find the current division pretty good... the more communication oriented something is the more online it is. I think this falls out naturally from what consumers want and what makes sense technically. Do consumers really want an online spreadsheet yet, for example? Someone has to push the envelope I guess. I'm curious to see the reaction to this move.
Cheers.
I think this is a great idea... assuming that they make it difficult to trigger by accident or hacking (am I assuming too much?). More than my cell phone, I wish they'd do this with iPods. Even without wireless they could make it only happen on sync. If they did that, I wonder how long it would take for thievery to become less desirable. It would have to be pretty consistant to work.
Cheers.
I want to know where I can move. Seriously. I love what America is supposed to stand for, but it doesn't stand for that any more. This wiretapping thing is a small thing in the big picture, but eventually I really think I'd rather move on and try my luck somewhere else. I've travelled a bit and France and Scotland both seemed kinda nice at a glance. I'm sure they have their problems.
Basically I'm wondering if anyone really likes their country. What are some good options for someone who wants to move on? Taking into account my obvious bias for technology and liberty?
Cheers.
And that makes us different from anybody else how? ;)
:)
Because we're the only ones dumb enough to think we're smart enough to think we can.
Or something like that
Here in America, where we talk a lot about businesses and competition and capitalism, we're actually not much different from the Soviets
Here here. I think one of the things that is not understood well enough is that without regulation to avoid this kind of thing, the inevitable natural state of a totally unregulated market or society is monopolies and despotism. It takes active involvement to maintain competition and capitalism. But somehow, despite the fact that we've already been through this in many nations at many times, this knowledge is lost over and over.
I haven't listened to the radio in years. Good job Clear Channel.
I've always believed that despite any increase in exposure brought by file sharing, it was going to be a problem for CD sales eventually. The record company exaggerated the harm, but the proponents exaggerated the benefits. But in the end it doesn't matter. Because it's not important to compare CD sales to file sharing; a decade earlier CD sales killed tape sales too and nobody really cared. The real problem is that the music biz didn't get into the new medium fast enough. They were too chicken to just put mp3's up for sale. So people did it black market like. General note: if something is going to happen anyway, you might as well embrace it. You don't get much for standing around and whining.
Now iTunes has demonstrated that people are more than willing to pay for a music download service even when music is available free. Because the key word is service. And the price is reasonable to most people. That's all any business has to do. The only major things iTunes lacks are complete selection (though it's quite good) and non-DRM (which will never happen). Both of these are the last vestiges of the recording industry resisting change. I think they'd actually make more money if they gave up on stopping people from doing things and focused on making their customers giddy happy.
Apple should be happy that its golden goose is getting so much free publicity
First off, Apple is too legally aggressive in my opinion, so this is not a defense of the company in general. However, my non-lawyer understanding here is that they may be at risk of trademark dillusion if they don't go after this kind of thing. It isn't clear cut, and different judges will rule differently, so they're erring on the side of caution. This may just be a legally prudent action to keep their trademark.
Of course, if someone with more legal experience can explain how they're not at all at risk, then sure, maybe they're just being assholes.
Cheers.
I've hooked my iPod up with four different devices over the past couple years with aftermarket devices; the quality varies greatly. I skipped the FM and tape units as the sound quality isn't satisfactory. So these were all direct-in solutions, using the dock connector and the CD-changer hookup that most cars have today. The one that I most recently installed is called the DICE, and I'm really happy with it. Previous tries had problems with the iPod not always shutting down or starting up automatically when the car was turned on and off, and some of them would introduce odd noises now and again. But the DICE hasn't exhibited any of these problems, and also has some really cool extras like text display of the artist/song if your stereo does CD text, and steering wheel control while still allowing direct control with the iPod.
Anyways, that worked well for me!
Cheers.
The tone of your post is such that I can't imagine you read all of or understood mine. Ah well seems that disappointment abounds!
Cheers.
A good point; I hadn't realized that was the case here, but you're right. In fact, that is my position: if someone was profitting from my work then I'd be upset, but I don't mind if people share it freely.
Wrongo. I donate money to various causes because I can do without it. I'm not the only one.
I wonder if this is about me. I've been the Director of Development for the past six years at Zappos.com, but my signature for most of that time has read "Director of Plumbing" :)
I don't think it is about me, but maybe I'm just too much of a PHB to even know! Hey, Frustrated Dilbert, if I'm the guy you're talking about just sit down with me sometime and fill me in!
Cheers.
(leaving potentially ironic signature in place)
You are absolutely right about the energy source / energy storage confusion. I've had a really hard time explaining that to even smart people. However, hydrogen doesn't need to be an energy source to be useful; a good energy storage & transportation medium would be a very useful thing over time. What I mean is that there is an advantage to abstracting our fuel sources; it allows us to switch out the underlying enegy gathering mechanism from the infrastructure. If we're on hydrogen already when fossil fuels run out, we can switch to another method of generation without having to retool the whole world.
:) We'll see what happens, I suppose :)
I agree on your last point too, though. Biodiesel may very well be a better storage medium. Aside from the higher energy density it is far easier and safer to store and handle. I think one of it's biggest problems is that it's not sexy sounding enough for most people. They associate hydrogen with the hydrogen bomb (despite the reaction being unrelated of course) and they associate biodiesel with greenpeace and smokey oily truckers.
Perhaps if someone made a biodiesel fuel cell of sorts to power laptops...
Cheers.
Keep in mind that a large group, like a student committee or slashdot, the group can be vocal oppontents and vocal proponents of intellectual property in different cases without any individual actually contradicting themselves. But taking that into account, I'll be there are still a huge number of copyright violators who would be outraged if their own copyright was violated. I find that kind of double standard pretty lame and disappointingly common. And it's one of the many reasons that we haven't been able to get reasonable copyright limits in place... because so many people want infinite protection for their own ideas even though it's obvious that society functions better with a less restricted idea flow.
At the moment I don't have anything popular enough to make a point with, but the creative projects
I have worked on I've made freely available. I'd like to think that if I ever had a big hit song or movie that I'd release it into the public domain after a few years, maybe 14 like the founders allowed. Maybe sooner if I could do so financially.
Cheers.
The site I have data for is large (around 10mm pageviews per day) and is general in appeal (not an Apple or tech related site). Our Mac percentage has been increasing slowly but steadily. For September so far it is at 7.63%. I predict that they're doing fine.
Cheers.
Most interesting to me is that despite most of the passwords being decent it makes not a lick of difference in these people being phished. Once again, being sharp and understanding of the big picture is more important than following any isolated rule about security. Good luck getting that out to the masses, though :)
Cheers.
I predict that over time the Wikipedia will have moved forward quickly enough to make the Citizendium a less useful source. Remember, we've already had plenty of expert edited encyclopedias and references around. The fact that Wikipedia is useful (regardless of any criticisms) shows that it has some advantage over the other references that existed beforehand. Never underestimate the power of large numbers. I am curious to see if Citizendium does offer a useful middle ground between traditional encyclopedias and the wiki.
Cheers.
That sure does seem high. I live in Las Vegas and my 2100 sqft house comes in at $170/month in the summer and as low as $30 in the winter. Are your windows and doors sealed properly? Maybe there's some missing stripping? Not sure if it would help in your case, but solar screens can help. I don't even have them, though. But a lot of people around here do.
Good luck.
Well I can't prove it, but I know that I'm lousy at most puzzles. But I'm quite good at real-world problem solving. I've been working at my current employer for six years, as the first programmer and now as head of the development team. We've been rated in the top 5 fastest and most reliable retail sites for a long time now, as we doubled business year over year, so I think we (that includes me) are pretty good at solving real world problems. Some of the team likes puzzles, and some do not.
;) I worked at Microsoft for a while, and they're all about the puzzle-type interview questions. I did not feel that this got them the best people.
I think the puzzle solving thing appeals to a certain type of mind, sure. And perhaps a higher than average number of those people make decent programmers. But I've known puzzle solvers who couldn't focus on a practical solution to save their life. I've also known puzzle avoiders like myself, who are excellent at such things -- and quite humble, I assure you
Anyways, I think it may be occasionally useful, but a catch-all litmus test like this is bound to fall short. Humans are complicated things. The skills required to make a good developer are varied and hard to pin down. And a good team will want variety as well. No simple test is going to substitute for understanding the problem space, understanding the existing team dynamic, getting a good sense of the applicant, and using good judgment.
Cheers.
I agree with you. However it doesn't actually need to be a solid system to seemingly have the desired effect. iTunes 6 broke Hymn quite a while ago and until last week there was no way to decrypt. There still isn't on the Mac. They can keep changing things up and make it a pain. And even though there's still CD's out there and people can download from P2P, they file lawsuits to put a damper on that. So I think they believe their strategy is stopping 80% or more of the problem.
However, I think the real reason legal music downloads is working is because iTunes is a better experience. That's it. I think they're wasting their own time and money with DRM and lawsuits and whatever. All they've ever had to do was provide a better experience and people will pay. People with money will, anyways. They've seen this but they won't believe it. And if they wanted to take it further down the "better experience" path, they'd drop DRM and lawsuits. But whatever; they won't.
Cheers.
I own the VHS copies of the original trilogy. I don't want the special editions. So I downloaded the TR47 DVD versions from BitTorrent. They're from the Laserdisc, and they look pretty good. They're a little mushy looking, but good enough for me to feel satisfied, anyways. There's also some great DVD cover art to go with them if you poke around. I recommend any Star Wars fan check those out.
If Lucas released a cleaned & remastered versions of the originals, where cleanup included things like eliminating those travelling trash mattes in some of the space battles, but no more, I'd be happy to buy it. Until then, I've got something that I think is good enough.
Cheers.